


and if you have nightmares, we'll dance on the bed

by overtures



Series: lighten up, buttercup [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, also me pretending i know how to write fight scenes, me pretending i know what i'm doing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-05 19:09:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11584332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overtures/pseuds/overtures
Summary: Because getting a parking garage dropped on you will have lasting impacts, superhero or not.





	and if you have nightmares, we'll dance on the bed

**Author's Note:**

> this was supposed to be practice with characterization for a larger fic i'm writing but i have no self control so here?? take this????
> 
> warnings: panic attacks (and discussions of) ahead. also a lot of run-on sentences and a grand misuse of commas.
> 
> title from guillotine by jon bellion. all mistakes are my own.

“You,” Peter says, dropping his backpack down and dragging his chair closer to MJ, “are actually the worst.”

It’s first period on a Wednesday, and Peter’s actually early to class, for once. Last night was a relativity early night for him but he still couldn't find time to do the assigned readings for English. It's whatever, he thinks. He'll just read MJ's, because that's what having a girlfriend is for, right?

Girlfriend. Nice. They’ve been dating for over a month, but still. Nice.

“Am I allowed backstory before I prepare my defence, or--”

“You stole Ned! Again!”

MJ’s still looking at her colourfully annotated copy of Brave New World, highlighter in one hand and sticky note ready in the other, but her lips quirk slightly as she replies, “People don’t own other people, it’s not the 1850’s.”

“You know what I mean!” he exclaims, exasperated. At MJ’s raised eyebrow, he continues: “He said he can’t come over tonight because he’s working on some stupid Spanish project with you.”

“Oh, I am so sorry that I interrupted your game of Dungeons and Dragons, that is quite honestly my bad, how could--”

“That’s the third time this week!”

“That you’ve played Dungeons and Dragons? Jeez, get a hobby.”

“You know what I mean,” Peter repeats, rolling his eyes. How MJ managed to be so sarcastic during first block, he would probably never figure out.

MJ sighs. “You don’t even know that I asked him to be partners. He could’ve easily asked me.”

“Yeah, except for the small fact that he’s still slightly terrified of you and would never initiate a conversation, let alone a partnership, with you.”

“Me? I am the polar opposite of terrifying. The antonym of scary. The epitome of benign--”

“Just yesterday you told him you’d gut him like a fish if he didn’t stop crunching his chips.”

That gets her to look away from her book, and she fixes Peter with a steady look. “Hey, I would like the record to show that we were in the library and that I was also balls-deep into my history report and not about to let his loud-ass crunching bring me out.”

The bell rings then, bringing about an end to their banter. When Peter looks over MJ’s shoulder at her annotations, because he doesn’t have time to fight crime and struggle through Huxley’s metaphor-laden forewarnings about society, thank you very much, she pushes her book closer to him without saying a word. 

-

Tight spaces still aren’t comfortable for Peter. 

In reality, he knows that being surrounded by chatting teenagers as they move through the hallway is so far apart from being crushed by the weight of a parking garage that they might as well be in different galaxies, but still. It’s overwhelming to his heightened senses, even when he wears headphones and keeps his eyes locked solely on the tile floor. So he waits until he sees MJ walking down the hallway, crowd parting around her like the Red Sea for Moses (It’s the combination of her slight Resting Bitch Face and her fast-paced walk, Peter thinks. Ned thinks that everyone’s just scared shitless of her.) before he makes his way through the crowd, focusing on the rectangle pattern in the floor, his breathing, and his footsteps. 

“Hey,” he says as she bends down to meet his lips with hers. There is supposedly a strict ‘No PDA in the hallways’ rule, but if the teachers can overlook Betty Brant’s aggressive daily makeout sessions with her current arm candy, well, they can overlook anything. MJ smiles her rare smile in response, and Peter thanks whichever god is responsible for high-school crushes (Eros, maybe? MJ was the one taking Comparative Civilizations, not him.) that his crush actually ended up alright.

“Hello? Do you want it or not?”

Blinking, his gaze switches from MJ’s lips to her outstretched hand, currently holding her copy of Brave New World towards him like an offering. “Um, yeah, sure, but…”

“I’ve read it before,” which, of course, “and I feel bad about stealing Leeds away from you.”

“Hey, no, I don’t care that much, it’s fine.”

“Take it anyways.” She bites at her lip, unsure of how to phrase her next sentence. “Besides, you’re… maybe falling behind. A bit. A lot, actually.”

Peter knows he’s slacking in school, but hearing his girlfriend (still nice) tell him so directly to his face makes him falter slightly. “Did a Staples store throw up on this?” he asks while running his hand over the multiple neon-coloured tabs sticking out from the side of the book, attempting to direct the conversation far away from his bad habits. He knows he needs to have that conversation with someone, eventually, but preferably not with MJ, and especially not in the middle of a crowded school hallway.

“Oh, I will take the offer back, just you watch,” she reaches out for the book, but Peter’s faster and it’s already halfway in his backpack, placed right on top of the Spider-man suit. 

He’s not going to lose this backpack, he’ll make sure of it. Somehow. Hopefully.

-

His Spidey-ing, as Ned calls it, starts off relatively well that night. He retrieves an escaping balloon for a small child who watches him with wide eyes and a gaping mouth, stops a pickpocket, and chases away two men who were harassing a young woman. She thanks him multiple times but declines his offer to walk her to her car, saying she’s meeting up with her girlfriend in a block. Peter absentmindedly keeps an eye on her as he chows down on a sandwich, because hey, men are assholes.

He hears the blast before anything else and he turns towards the sound instinctively. In the distance, a large plume of smoke is drifting up into the sky and he can feel the vibrations caused by the explosion run through his body. A second explosion rings out from the same place and this time Peter sees the flash of purple light that accompanies it. Hey, he thinks, those explosions kind of look like they were made by the same--

Shit. The explosions were made using weapons sold by Toomes’ gang.

Peter discards the half of his sandwich and launches himself off of the roof he was previously occupying, shooting out a web. Shit, shit, shit! Those guns were crazy dangerous and were never used for anything good. Peter was fully aware of their capabilities of those weapons but he still didn't know how to effectively stop those wielding them.

Whatever. He’ll wing it.

“Karen, where are the explosions coming from?”

“They are originating three blocks away from you in a local bank.”

Bank robbery? Again? Criminals are seriously lacking in the originality department as of late, 

Peter thinks as he navigates towards the building in question. The smoke is starting to dissolve into the Queens skyline, and there haven’t been any further explosions, meaning the robbery is currently in session or the criminals have gotten away. Please let it still be happening, please…

White van still parked outside the doors? Perfect.

“Hey idiots!” he shouts as he swings into the building through a gaping hole in the side, “Next time you decide to rob a bank, leave the LED light show at home!”

The five men wearing ski masks (the amount of cliches are seriously starting to add up at this point) all turn to face him, and the two with the large, alien powered guns aim them in his direction.

“Karen, are there any hostages?” Peter asks under his breath as he scampers up the wall.

His suit does a brief scan of the room before reporting back to him: “Seven, all behind the counter.”

The sound of an alien gun firing up jolt’s Peter’s attention to the man aiming it at him. In the split second before the trigger gets pulled, Peter jumps above him and webs the gun out of the man’s grasp. After sticking the gun to the wall with a web grenade, he swings towards the counter where the other otherworldly-armed man is tracking him with a laser built into his weapon. 

“Get out of here and call the cops, I’ve got this,” Peter tells the hostages who are huddled behind the counter, before turning to the robber. “Buddy, I’m not Cat-Man, I’m not gonna follow that laser,” he quips before aiming a swift kick to the other man’s jaw and making him fall like a marionette with no strings. The gun flies across the room. After he lands, Peter webs the gun to the opposite wall, before turning to face the four remaining men. Out of the corner of his eye he spots the hostages escaping through the same hole he entered through and absentmindedly hopes that one of them manages to call the cops. 

The men all begin to move towards Peter simultaneously and he returns his concentration to the main matter at hand. He takes two of the bad guys out in rapid succession, kneeing one in the gut and then turning to elbow the other right in between his shoulder blades.

“Get out of here,” Peter tells the remaining two goons. They share a look with each other before turning and fleeing out of the door towards their van, but they don’t make it far down the street before Peter, having followed them outside, sticks them to the ground with a web grenade.

He claps his hands. “Alright, let’s get you three with your friends,” he says as he lifts the unconscious one over his shoulder, fireman style. He webs the two conscious men together and drags them behind him, neither one of them putting up a struggle.

He’s back in the bank when his memories of past fights that featured this type of technology come rushing back to him, and wow, he never learns from his mistakes, does he. Because the last time Peter had used his webbing on an alien gun, the gun…

Exploded.

The blast sends Peter flying backwards towards the counter the hostages were previously behind. His head swarms with bright lights and he can't tell if it’s the suit or his brain that's causing his ears to ring so loudly. His body is sprawled on the floor as he blinks and blinks in an attempt to regain some semblance of clear vision. When his eyesight does clear, he's met with the sight of the wall opposite him crumbling down, rubble and debris flying through the air, and suddenly he’s not in a bank but trapped under a parking garage and there might not be a thousand pounds of cement pressing down on his body but still for some reason he can’t move.

He can’t move.

A slab of plaster from the ceiling crashes into the counter before dropping on top of Peter, pinning his leg to the ground, and now his breaths are coming too quickly and he knows he needs to calm down and get out of here before more rubble falls onto him but he can’t because this isn't a crowded high school hallway and there’s no path to be cleared out of the debris and no MJ to clear it for him and he’s alone and he can’t move he can't move he can’t--

“... having a panic attack. Would you like me to call your Aunt to help you calm down?” Karen's calm voice pierces through the haze of panic that was colouring all of his thoughts. 

“No,” he manages to croak out in between shuddering breaths. “Not - not May.” 

“You have been lying here for just over five minutes, and the police are on their way.  
Communication is one of the most effective techniques in combatting anxiety attacks, so I'd recommend that you talk to someone. Perhaps you should call Ned?”

He's still trapped. The police are coming and they'll find Peter lying alone on the floor and they won't be able to save him, not this time, because even though lightning might not strike the same person twice buildings apparently do and --”

“Call…” he can't call Ned because he's busy today, he's working with --

“MJ, call MJ.”

-

Half an hour later, after an internal pep-talk rousing enough to rival Al Pacino’s from Any Given Sunday, crawling out from under the rubble, and managing to successfully make his way home without crashing into any buildings, Peter finds himself knocking on the window to MJ’s room in her apartment.

‘Knocking’ is probably an overstatement. At best, his actions could be described as ‘weakly tapping’. But despite this, MJ and Ned both hear the sound and turn their head towards the window. 

MJ rushes over to let him in. “Are you okay?” she asks the second the window is even slightly open.

“Yeah,” he breathes as he slides himself into the room, immediately dropping onto the floor with exhaustion. “I’m fine.”

MJ’s fingers tug on the edge of the mask, and Peter lets her pull it off. “You don’t look okay,” she comments, taking in his tear-stained cheeks and red rimmed eyes.

“What? I’m fine. Those guys didn’t even touch me.”

“Yeah, well, that building sure as hell did,” Ned pipes up from his place on MJ’s bed. At 

Peter’s wide-eyed, questioning look, he continues: “When you called Michelle, and I’m kind of butthurt that you didn’t call me, by the way, you sounded like you were in a shitton of pain so we turned on the news and saw the bank collapse.”

“The reporters were saying you were in there for, like, ten minutes after it collapsed. What happened?” MJ asks, an expression of concern written on her face.

Peter swallows, his mouth suddenly dry. “It was fine, you know, just a normal bank robbery and then shit hit the fan and, well, you know the rest, I guess.”

“No, we really don’t. Why were you in there for so long?”

Peter looks up at Ned and then drops his gaze to the floor, staring intently at the patterns woven into the carpet. “They had weapons that were, um,” he begins, “made by Toomes’ gang and, uh. The last time I fought someone using weapons like that was on the ferry when I webbed the gun and it exploded and I guess the same thing happened here, so, really it’s my bad, I guess.”

He hears Ned shift on the bed and MJ breathe his name softly so tears his gaze away from the floor.

“I just panicked.” He shrugs.

“Peter, you didn’t do anything wrong, okay?” MJ asks, her hand cradling the side of Peter’s face.

“I know, it’s just,” he blinks, returning his gaze to the floor, “it--the building almost collapsed on me again and I, I just, I don’t know what I would’ve done, and I couldn’t move.” His words get overrun by his choked breaths and MJ’s hand moves from his face to rubbing circles on his back. His face is wet, and he realizes that he’s been crying.

“Is this about what happened on homecoming?” Ned asks. He’s moved from the bed to kneel beside MJ.

Peter’s silence provides the answer.

“Look, dude, you don’t have to be okay from that yet. That was not even four months ago, and--”

“Yeah, I know, but I couldn’t move!” His voice cracks on the last word and he shrugs away from MJ. “It’s not even about that, it’s just, I keep on fucking up and dropping entire buildings on myself and now I can’t even walk down the school hallway without feeling claustrophobic so I don’t know how I’m supposed to deal with this!”

Neither one of his friends speak for a moment, letting his words register into their minds. Ned breaks the silence with “Exactly how many buildings have been dropped on you?”

“Just a, um, just a parking garage.” Peter doesn’t look up at either of them. He’s too busy being trapped in his own mind, trying to force the memories of being swallowed alive by the concrete and rubble back down into the deeper parts of his conscience. 

His mouth tastes like blood mixed with rainwater and dust and he clenches his teeth to keep himself from gagging.

“Toomes dropped it on me,” he says after he becomes aware enough of his surroundings to notice the lack of reply from Ned or MJ. “I was under there for a long time and no one new where I was. I was alone and I thought…”

He can’t say it.

He feels arms wrap around his shoulders and suddenly MJ is pulling him in tight. He breathes in the smell of her lemon-scented shampoo and looks up to see Ned reaching out to join in on the hug. Wrapped up in the arms of his friends, Peter realizes that he’s as far away from that night as he can possibly be.

“I thought I was gonna die there,” he confesses. 

MJ’s arms squeeze him tighter as he speaks. “You’re not now.”

“Yeah. I know, but I wasn’t, and it kind of really sucked.” 

“Hey, look at me.” Peter pulls back from the hug and turns to face her. “You’re not gonna be alone again, okay? You’ve got Ned and I, and your aunt, and, hell, even Stark. And if you do panic and freak out again, it’ll be okay, I promise.”

“Yeah, dude, just tell us whenever something like this happens again, alright?”

Peter nods and sighs, feeling exhausted from the stresses of the day. “There’s one more thing I gotta tell you,” he says to MJ, weary.

“Hm?”

“I. Might have lost the backpack that contained your annotated copy of Brave New World.”

MJ just stares at him before speaking, “If you hadn’t just literally cried on my shoulder two seconds ago you would be dead right now,” but her words are laced with fondness and there’s a small smile gracing her lips.

“Hey, we can all share my copy!” Ned exclaims.

“I would so rather we didn’t.”

Peter laughs alongside Ned, and the weight at the bottom of his stomach that has been dragging him down ever since homecoming night disappears. He might not be okay right now, but he’ll get through it.

As long as he’s got these guys, he thinks, he can get through anything.

**Author's Note:**

> peter's panic attack and how he talks about it in the Discussion are based off of personal experiences so if theyre different from what u may experience then that is why okay peace


End file.
